Larkin 25 - The Suburbs By Gary Clark

What! Kingston-Upon-Hull! You don't want to live there. Says the condescending old biddy at the end of the phone With a tone in her voice that cuts to the bone. Already I'm a loser and she hasn't seen my face A feeling you get used to when you come from this place. I feel as though I'm rubbish when I'm talked to like this Drummed into me daily since I was a kid. Just who do these people think that they are? With a semi in Cottingham and a company car. I lived there myself, one eternity But returned to Hull and some needed sanity. I put that house on the market and made two hundred grand Was she the snotty nosed telephonist who snapped off my hand? All prim and proper, I showed them around Double glazing, new carpets, And that kitchen cost a few pound. As I lied through my teeth and politely smiled. 'I'm so pleased you found us and finally dialled' 'It's made for you, I can see it in your face. You'll fit in well here with all the other fakes' But you cannot say that when you live in the sticks, Just smile ever so sweetly because that's all it takes. They are buying a postcode on the right side of town, What does it matter if the house is falling down? As long as they've escaped from that place they call Hull These people so shallow they believe their lives are now full. Educated but stupid and full of their own shit I thought the same once and swallowed every bit. My life would be enhanced if I moved up the road, To a place that was so leafy and liberal, I'm told. Fantastic, if you want to be old before your time, But no-one told me it was riddled with crime. So, I'm back in Hull amongst the dirt and the grime With people I trust and for whom I have time. I may not be posh living in a house covered in ivy But paying three hundred thousand for that! They must have been barmy! I've been there and done that and it filled me with dread. Living in Cottingham? I'd sooner be dead.

Copyright © Gary Clark 2010

Poetry - Larkin 25 - One Straight Road By Julie Corbett

Holderness Road you stray from edge to heart of my city. Your miles once paced by cream telephone boxes. You pass over veins, from the Wolds and Holderness Plain Barmston and Marfleet Drains the brackish water mixing with, Read more...

Poetry - The Boathouse By Michelle Dee
	I recall this night with warm, inviting people, huddled around fires, within and without. I remember passing around wine and losing all sense of time. Faded news cut-outs fragmenting on bathroom walls. And the dusty allure of an overcrowded kitchen. I see pictures of fire-lit faces; Read more...

Poetry Larkin 25 - It Really Was! (Inspired by Annus Mirabilis) By Mike Watts

Sexual intercourse began In nineteen eighty three (Which was brilliant for me) - Between the end of Tennessee Williams And Madonna's first LP Up till then they'd only been A sort of wanking A secret stash of porn Read more...

Poetry - Larkin 25 - This Be The Curse (Inspired by This Be The Verse) By Joe Hakim

They fucked us over, our mums and dads. They didn't mean to but they did. They took free education, cheap housing and jobs And left nothing for us, their kids. Because they inherited the future, Opportunity, optimism and hope, While we got disappointment, Read more...

Poetry - Larkin 25 - Larkin With Us By Gary Clark

The Hull you knew has long since gone How could it remain the same? The deep sea port you wrote about The fishermen you blamed The grim face, head scarved wives I think you really admired You must have done, Read more...

Poetry - Kowalski's OGM - With audio download By Brindley Hallam Dennis

So, ya got through to Kowlaski's number. Well, Kowalski ain't 'ome. Mildred, that's his old lady, she ain't 'ome either. Ya see, that's what ya get. That's what ya get fer callin' such a dumb-ass hour. That means you Hank. Ya wanna leave a message, talk to the machine when it beeps. Read more...

Poetry - The Gap By Chris Culshaw

He lives in a bedsit now, in a house peopled by footfalls, piles of junk mail on the mahogany hall-stand where a broken umbrella hangs like a snared crow beside the pocked mirror. His room in the eaves looks out over sooty privets, to a gap between Read more...

Poetry - Handing Down By Trevor Matthews

She was sitting at my kitchen table looking at her hands. These, she said, are my mother's hands. She had big hands like these. Every time I look at them now I see her, and she held them up in front of me. Bright sun pierced the thinning flesh. Inside I saw the shadows of her bones Read more...

Poetry - Harrogate Bedrock, 1899 By Sarah Hymas

What I love about you I have yet to quarry. Your worn granite face holds the promise of mica and buttoned sandstone, a cladding for our home. As limestone is local diamond, Read more...

Poetry - Don't Know How To Put It In Words By Dayne Coyne
	Don't know how to put it in words But I'm wanting to thank you For being so honest with me And though it might sound absurd: But, apart from myself, It is you who most helps me to be So excuse me if I seem pedantic Read more...

Poetry - I Don't Know What To Do By Zachary Brannon

I don't know what to say, what to do; all I can ever think about is you! Not sure what you think about me never have been; But in the end it's your heart I hope to win! I Will always be around, always here; My heart, I'm sure, even skips a beat Whenever you come near. Read more...

Poetry - This Is Not A Love Poem By Mike Watts

No She didn't Punch A hole through My breast bone Rip out My still beating heart And then volley it Out of sight Somewhere Read more...

Poetry - Since You Came By Bronwyn Ellis
	Is it a chore? And nothing more A phase you killed off years before? A painful bore? An anger cure? An 'I can't be bothered anymore?' We're both so young Love should be fun As good as when we'd first begunRead more...

Poetry - Acres Wide By Terry Ireland

Come sleep with me she said Bring some warmth to my bed That seems to spread acres wide Now that it's empty on his side Just for a while hold me tight Shorten just one endless night So full of hours that I have wept Until exhausted and finally slept Read more...

Poetry - Larkin 25 - It's Good Innit? By Catherine Scott

This is Hull - wot we got? Sanitization, deprivation Unemployment, no motivation Teenage mums, no inspiration It's good innit? This is Hull - wot we got? Beggars on street Coppers on beat Read more...

Poetry - The Last Great Adventure? By Laurenceaux.

An 'end-game' of addiction, the despair of a life only going one-way: some people are pre-disposed to drug abuse, as they are to alcohol abuse, quite possibly because they are 'bored', but more probably because they have lost essential feelings of self-worth or have become detached from mainstream society, a society with ever increasing demands for total conformity. Read more...

Poetry - I Lost a Girl and a Car By John Dervishian

You shit on my car because I was immoral but that's alright I was days shy of getting that thing repossessed anyway Read more...

Poetry - Another Night Out By John Dervishian

She pours my drink As often as I request And she pours It well No questions asked A Jack on the rocks Read more...

Poetry - The Nearly Men By Terry Ireland

I am one of the nearly men Never quite the best Not really of the crowd Not quite one of the rest. You see us in every photograph When the prizes are handed out Making up the numbers yet Read more...

Poetry - Persecution Express By Mark Walmsley
	A full head of steam, to fulfil one mans dream, The train leaves the station, with recognisation Bellowing black smoke, as the cargo does choke The heave and strain, of the departing train Carriages all broken, blindness no token, The screams and the wails, at the stories and tales Across field and valley, does not dilly-dally, Read more...

Poetry - An Old Vets Christmas By David Delaney
	He shuffles down a quiet darkened street, alone, he always dreads this time of year, cause locals, he just does not wish to meet. He eats collected scraps and drinks warm beer. Now as the rain begins to softly fall he crawls beneath a long deserted shop, and hears the singing from the nearby hall Read more...

Poetry - Dreams By Dino
	These are the things I'd like to call dreams These are the things That are just dreams Rocking horses Running nowhere Big glass heads With eyes of despair Read more...

Poetry - Easy By Jessica Meador
	It's so much easier To focus When I can't stand The smell Living in this Vacant hell When I can't stand To feel Read more...

Poetry - Gone Forever By Katelyn Langston

	As I looked across the glimmering lake all I could do was sigh, for I could never forget my husband, for he watches me way up high. I can hear his old chair creak, when the whispering wind blows, I still see his jacket on the coat rack when it snows. I miss his soft and tender voice, coming from the den, I miss his gentle footsteps whenever he came in. Read more...

Poetry - Out Rage By Belinda Barchard
	pacing up and down no one around to hear the sound of me screaming my gut wrenching squealing I'm seething might as well stop breathing grab my wrists and pin me down Read more...

Poetry - Weekend Wasters By Bronwyn Ellis
	Mundane Mondays, tedious Tuesda' 8 o clock starts and sugar free muesli. Wednesday's the mile point that breaks up the toil, By Thursday you've buried your head in the soil. Fridays the high day when weekend begins, People mince round the office with permanent grins. They're happy go lucky and no-one can spoil it, Read more...

Poetry - I Probably Deserved It By Mike Watts

Early hours Monday I had this mad episode I thought I was being Strangled I could feel the pressure Around my throat Fingers crushing my Adam's apple Read more...

Poetry - Squaddie By Terry Ireland

You've got to have been a squaddie To understand the life; The friendships that are sometimes Closer than a wife. You can see them on the streets Seldom on their own. Squaddie life doesn't support Much time spent alone. Read more...

Poetry - The Four Corners of the Earth By Christian Bundegaard
	Sparks when the plough strikes our forefathers' helmets. New soldiers on manoeuvres drink milk by the dry-stone wall. Only creeping blue moss in winter sun knows which moments eternity is connected to. In the early misty morning the forest And a man with a kopper shadow expire. A green bird sits on a branch. Read more...

Poetry - The King is Bread, Long Life Milk From a collection of short stories and humorous poetry, The Unitary Authority of Ersatz by Richard Sutherland
	O Foodstuff Golem King with eyes of pastrami, lettuce leaf tongue and nostril salami, as you perch on your throne of marmalade shred, I can't help but gaze at your strawberry head. How I long to lick sugar from those big doughnut ears, and dip crumpet hands in sweet chocolaty tears. You were always delicious, even as a baby, nappies just perfect for soaking up gravy; Read more...

Poetry - The Festive Fifty By Jim Higo (Repubished with additions)

I could top the charts with a power number, A political song, raise the masses from slumber, Do a gig on the Humber. Dance on stage with footwork nifty, I'd rather be in the festive fifty. I could get Mick Jones to produce my single, Go to A list parties, and mingle, Write a radio jingle. Read more...

Poetry - Industrial Dispute By Terry Ireland

Santa stood in the warehouse Full of nearly empty shelves Last night they'd been ram raided By a bunch of discontented elves Recently Read more...

Poetry - Letters From Santa By Bronwyn Ellis
	Dear little children near and far, No matter just how good you are, I've had enough I'm sad to say, I won't be working Christmas day. And so I write my grave confession, I've fallen to the lands recession, My reindeer Rudolph broke his hoof, My heating bill is through the roof, Read more...

Poetry - Competition Commission By Joe Hakim

The rain crackles like static on the window and the laptop sighs at the end of the bed. Fucked off by forces I control again, I roll cigarettes and wait for a break, and flip bleached coppers into Read more...

Poetry - Mugabe's Prayer By Terry Ireland

Thank you Good Lord For this fine day On which my power Still holds sway You will of course I think agree You get much support Read more...

Poetry - The Vicious Circle By Lee Cassanell

	Day twenty nine and the rum had run out I woke up in the hold with the driest of mouths In a dress made of lace and a pain in my arse I recalled being tied to the foot of the mast Then recoiled at the thought of the cabin boys fate There were sharks off the bough so we used him as bait And his screams as the fiends shredded meat from his chops Read more...

Poetry - Jesus (Who's He?) By Bernard Franklin
	Sometimes I pray so hard at Christmas That the world will look again, At the reasons why we have to take Sweet Jesus name in vain. Where once the commercial side of Christmas Was a seedy sin we bore, It's now outstripped the gospel's teaching Read more...